Silly me; I'd always thought that the diversity of viewpoints was one of the things that helped to make this country the bastion of freedom that it is. Or at least was. Our national post-9.11 fear and pity party seems to have produced a pervasive "loose lips sinks ships" paranoia. Americans have allowed Right-Wing ideologues to hijack political discourse in this country to the point where it is now considered "unpatriotic" to voice opinions contrary to the Neo-Con party line.
We have become so fearful of "them" that we have allowed our freedoms and a good portion of our civil rights to be hijacked by those who in reality are enemies of freedom. This twisted patriotism "patriotism" is proclaimed far and wide by a noisy, belligerent few, while the Silent Majority goes about their day-to-day existence blissfully unaware that their civil liberties are being chipped away.
AUSTIN -- Erica Anthony-Benavides is a junior at Trinity University in San Antonio, a member of Ladies in Physics and not very politically active. But because she signed a petition against the war in Iraq, a national conservative Internet site has declared her an enemy of America.
"I don't know why they want to accuse us of treason. It's not fair. We haven't done anything. We've just said something that somebody doesn't like," said Anthony-Benavides, a native of Corpus Christi.
Anthony-Benavides, 19, has been swept up in a new Internet war between the right and left in America that is trying to establish ideological purity for the nation.
Grass-roots political Internet sites have been springing up since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Those on the right vilify anyone who does not support President Bush and the Iraq war as communists and un-American, while those on the left use common curses to describe people on the right as fascists.
I'm thinking, "Damn, if this qualifies one as anti-American, how do I get myself declared anti-American?" If thinking differently, if questioning the belligerent minority, if refusing to accept the "loose lips sink ships" mentality qualifies me as "anti-American", I will wear that label proudly.
I may not agree with those on the Right, and I may even despise most of what they stand for, but I would argue until my dying breath for their right to their point of view. I would appreciate the same courtesy being extended in my direction.
